Could You Handle the Ferocious SEAL Training Program?

We already know that the SEALs are an unbelievably elite and incredibly talented group of American warriors. But how did they get that way? Not by being wimps, that's for sure.

The Daily Beast has the scoop on their intense---truly, harrowing---training regimen:

SEAL training is the most ferocious workout in the free world, according to Navy memoirs and other published reports, a bone-wrenching, spine-rattling affair that takes about two years, and overwhelms most men who attempt it. Those who pass go on to restock the 2,500-man rotation of active-duty SEALs. The best are eventually tapped for the elite Seal Team Six—the squad that got bin Laden. And as perhaps goes without saying, the average Googler wouldn't survive the pre-training requirements: 50 sit-ups and 42 pushups (in under two minutes each), a mile-and-a-half run (at sub seven-minute-mile pace), a 500-yard swim (in less than 13 minutes). There are no women allowed.

The trial begins with BUD/S (basic underwater demolition/SEAL training) at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, California, an otherwise lovely island in San Diego Bay. On the "grinder," a black asphalt courtyard, would-be SEALs spend hours doing mass calisthenics. In the pool, they are "drown-proofed" by swimming with bound arms and legs. On the shore, they experience "surf torture" (official name: water immersion), a prolonged bob in the 60-degree Pacific Ocean, or are made to jump on and off a pier while being hosed down with cold water. After hours of this—literally—men begin to crack up, and a class of 100 can shrink by 10 percent in a few minutes. Those who stick it out end up as "sugar cookies," wet, blue-lipped men belly-flopping on the beach: "Up! Down! Up! Down!"

And that's just the beginning. For what comes next, check out the full story.